


Day 19 - Found Family

by fanfictiongreenirises



Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Category: Batman: Gotham Knights (Comics 2000), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Tim Drake is Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27101260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: Bruce has some difficult conversations with Dick and Tim after certain documents are dropped onto his desk.Alternative Prompt - Found Family
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947217
Comments: 23
Kudos: 288





	Day 19 - Found Family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuroraKant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I Just Wanna Be A Good Kid, A Good Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120071) by [AuroraKant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant). 



> I was originally going to have this fill the 'Dirty Secret' prompt for yesterday, but this works better I feel
> 
> Biggest shoutout to the amazing AuroraKant, whose fic [I Just Wanna Be A Good Kid, A Good Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120071) this was heavily, _heavily_ inspired by. (I read it Way back at the start of the year and this canon fix it idea has been living in my brain rent free ever since bc it was just that good). Go check it out if you haven't already read it!!!! 
> 
> References are to Batman: Gotham Knights [#14](https://fanfictiongreenirises.tumblr.com/post/616792140035620864/dear-batman-okay-i-admit-that-always-looked) and [#15](https://fanfictiongreenirises.tumblr.com/post/616815814098763776/batman-gotham-knights-15). I've linked the sections in case you want context (The first part of this fic should be fine, but I would definitely recommend skimming over the #15 panel for the second half)
> 
> To be clear, this is a fix-it of Gotham Knights #14 and #15 ^~^
> 
> Disclaimer: i don't own dc. the italicised sentences in this are quotes from the comic panels linked

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON **ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN** , WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR **FREE**. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE **WITHOUT** THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

Bruce stared down at the documents on his desk. His half-finished cup of coffee sat beside them. He swallowed it down in one go; he would need all the help he could get for the two conversations he was about to have.

* * *

He started with Dick first, because Tim was still in school. And besides, it’d always been easy to talk to Dick.

But that had been before he’d seen this letter, before he’d seen just how wrong Dick had apparently picked up on certain things, how he hadn’t picked up on others entirely. Bruce clutched the slip of paper in his hand as he stood outside Dick’s apartment door, knowing that he probably looked shady as hell to every single one of Dick’s neighbours, but being too nervous to care.

Just as he raised his fist to knock, the door swung open, and Bruce was greeted by a long-suffering look.

“You stood here for _seventeen minutes_ ,” he was informed.

Bruce couldn’t think of a response, nerves too frazzled from the revelations of that day. He took off his shoes and placed them in a neat line, beside the pile of footwear that was littering the area behind Dick’s door.

“So,” Dick said conversationally, “what’s up, B?”

The thing was, Bruce still hadn’t entirely made up his mind about whether or not he was going to actually tell Dick that he’d read the letter. It wasn’t really even a letter, as much as it was a diary entry. And Dick himself had written it with no intention of Bruce ever reading it; wouldn’t it be better to try and address the things that Dick had brought up in it without actually telling him?

But that would be taking a cowardly route. Surely, in cases like this, the path that was the hardest was the best choice.

“It’s a bit of a long story,” Bruce began.

He walked over to the window, trying to bring to mind everything he had planned for this visit. He’d practised in the car, on the drive over, thankful for once that the distance to Dick’s home was over an hour away from the Manor.

“No emergency, though, right?” Dick called from the kitchen.

Bruce glanced at him where he was in front of the sink, on the other side of the room. “No emergency,” he confirmed.

A glance at the clock told him that Tim’s school would be letting out in three hours. He’d told Alfred that he’d be picking him up, so that gave him about an hour and a half to have this conversation. Not for the first time, Bruce debated leaving it.

But he knew he’d never bring it up again if he walked out now. “I…a letter was dropped on my desk this morning,” he said. “I’ve dealt with what caused it. That’s not the issue.”

“A ransom note?” Dick asked, raising an eyebrow. “Also, if it’s not an emergency, then you might as well help dry these.”

Bruce caught the worn dishcloth that was thrown at him, walking over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Dick. Drying dishes brought back too many memories of doing the same as Alfred was washing them, standing atop a small stool and doing his best to get every single droplet of water.

“Not a ransom note,” he said.

Dick let out a huff of breath, blowing up his fringe of hair before it fell into his eyes again. “B, quit being so cryptic and just tell me.”

Bruce put the dishtowel down and reached into his pocket. He got out the folded piece of paper and handed it to Dick.

Dick gave him a quizzical look, but took off one dripping rubber glove and plucked it from Bruce’s hand. He took such a long time with getting it to open that Bruce almost offered to help on three separate occasions, opening his mouth every time before closing it again and trying not to fidget.

Bruce knew the exact moment that Dick realised what it was by the sharp intake of breath.

 _Dear Batman_ , the letter began.

When he’d seen it on his desk, he’d thought that it was something akin to fanmail, posted to one of those online forums that Alfred and the kids liked to frequent. They’d begun after Robin had started coming out with Batman, when kids had actually begun to see the duo as protectors, rather than just a horror story of a shadow, told at bedtimes and before the important meals of the day.

Alfred had gone through a great deal of them; he knew this because on occasion, a letter or artwork would appear on his desk. Bruce had never kept them – that would be too dangerous. Each had been used as fuel for the fireplace in his office.

But he’d committed each of them to memory, the names of each of these little kids – and more often than expected, older people as well – that Batman had given hope to. It was no coincidence that they appeared when he was in a bad place.

Bruce had seen the opening at the start, the _Dear Batman_ , and ignored the part of his brain that had narrowed its eyes at the handwriting.

“How did you get this?” Dick asked. His voice was emotionless, but there was a look of trepidation in his eyes.

“It was delivered onto my desk,” Bruce murmured. “At home.” And now he didn’t know what to begin with.

“Bruce,” Dick said. “This… this was…”

“It was never meant to reach me,” Bruce said. “I know.”

His words had the opposite effect to what he’d intended. Dick finally met his eyes, something resigned in them. His fingers held the letter carefully, as though he was restraining himself from fiddling with it.

“I know it’s… not really what you wanted to hear—”

“Of course not,” Bruce agreed instantly, because how did one react when they realised that they’d been giving the wrong signals to someone they’d known and cared about for so long?

Some of the lines in the letter swam clearly in his head; he knew it’d be nearly impossible to forget them. And maybe that was for the best – they were an indication of his shortcomings, of the ways in which he’d failed to indicate such bone deep sentiments that it was a wonder – and a horrific one at that – that their recipient didn’t know it.

_Reading those files of yours…I guess it was the first time I was ever sure that you sometimes wondered the same kind of things._

_“Ward”. I hate that word. It stopped having any meaning the minute I turned eighteen, and I was afraid I would, too._

_I’m not ever worried that you haven’t thought things through. I’m just sometimes worried that I don’t factor into your thinking._

Dick scrubbed a hand down his face, letting out a measured breath. “I dunno what to tell you, Bruce,” he said with a forced smile. “And I get it, I do, I know how much you miss them, and… see, this is why I didn’t want you to ever read this. I wasn’t ready to see your reaction then, and I guess I’m _still_ not—”

“Dick,” Bruce interrupted. “What’re you talking about?”

Dick blinked at him. “Uh,” he said. “The bit at the end where I tell you that I wouldn’t trade my life now to go back to my old one?”

 _Ah_. After all the small bombshells that had littered the entirety of the letter, Bruce had barely thought he had the emotional capacity to even so much as suck in a breath when he’d gotten to the last paragraph. That hadn’t stopped his heart from stuttering at the last two lines, though.

_I miss my parents with my whole heart, Batman, I do. But I wouldn’t trade this for the world._

“Look, it’s fine,” Dick said. “I know how you feel. I wrote it there, didn’t I? You can be okay with your life now and still want to trade it for your parents back. It doesn’t… it doesn’t mean anything.”

The nonchalance in his voice said otherwise. Bruce _stared_ at him.

“What makes you think I would?” he said finally.

Dick huffed a laugh in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” he said. “ _Everything_ , B. The first time I got you something for Father’s Day, you barely said anything and spent the entire day on the hill. It wasn’t even my first year here; I was like fourteen or something. Your first couple birthdays I was here for were the same; you’d just sit in front of the fireplace and _brood_. And I get it, or at least, I can understand, even if I can’t empathise. You never really got over their deaths, or moved on in a healthy—”

“The reason,” Bruce broke in, _really_ not wanting to hear Dick’s opinions on how he continued to handle his parents’ deaths, “that I didn’t say anything when you carved me that bear, is that I had no idea _what_ to say, and by the time I’d come up with something, it’d been like a week. It was much too late then.”

“I dunno, I think ten years is a lot later,” Dick told him. 

Bruce cleared his throat. “I loved it,” he said. “I still have it, in a little box with all the other things you’ve gotten me over the years.”

“What other things? I never got you anything for Father’s Day after that.”

Bruce shrugged, turning back to the stack of wet dishes. “Sentimental things, I suppose. Trophies after you got a little too old for us to display them and not come across as tiger parents, or whatever the term is. All your terrible painting attempts,” he smiled at Dick’s half-hearted protest, “your baby teeth—”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m really not.”

Dick wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know how I feel knowing my gross baby teeth are sitting in a musty old box in the attic somewhere.”

“You don’t have to worry. It’s in one of the drawers under my bed.”

“That makes it even _worse_.”

Bruce brought the conversation back on track, because he’d hyped himself up for much too long to just let it die down. “What I’m trying to say is… I wouldn’t, either.” He ignored Dick’s head snapping towards him, his mouth parting a little. “Not just because it’d be selfish, but because… I like my life right now, as well. Or at least, I like the people in my life. My family. The friends I have.” He glanced to Dick, who was gaping at him openly now.

Bruce had sat there, for the better part of an hour after reading that particular part of the sentence. He tried to think – to _reall_ y think – about what would happen if the shooting that night had never taken place. He tried to remember his eight-year-old self the way he’d been, tried to recall the solid facts about his parents and their role in his life and in society.

And then he’d tried to see if a Bruce who would’ve grown up with two loving, living parents and all the privilege of upper-class society would still have chased down a child who’d seen his own die right before him. Would he have gone forward to talk to a police commissioner who he probably would’ve known only very distantly, perhaps not at all? And after being reassured that the child would be looked after by the state, would he have looked any further into it, or just gone on with his life, chalking it up to a traumatic event, even a funny anecdote to tell at parties? 

It had turned his stomach. He knew, without a doubt, that he probably wouldn’t’ve found Dick at the centre, because the only reason he had was because he’d been Batman. He didn’t like to think about what would happen to Dick, small for his age and still grieving, to be stuck there any longer than he already had been, or to have escaped out onto the merciless streets of Gotham.

And that had led his thoughts to Jason, and he had no doubt that he wouldn’t’ve come by the boy a second time after sending him off to that school. Jason would’ve been back on the streets.

Tim? Tim was quite possibly the only one who Bruce might’ve had a chance of running into. He wondered what would happen to a Tim who didn’t have Batman and Robin to chase after on lonely nights; where would his attention turn to?

“I…” Dick shook his head. “I gotta say, that’s a surprise.”

“From what you’ve said, I haven’t really given you a chance to think otherwise, have I?”

Dick shrugged, moving onto the next dirty Tupperware container. “You’re a hard person to get close to, Batman,” he said, a very close quote to the words of his younger self. “It was easier in the earlier days. Less projecting my own expectations and feelings and insecurities onto you. Less expectations and feelings and insecurities, period.”

Bruce didn’t have to ask him what he meant, because he remembered, quite acutely, how it’d been when the change had started. “You say that it changed for you, at a point,” he murmured. “For me, I think it was like that from the first day. I just didn’t realise until about a year or so in.”

Dick snorted. “That must’ve sucked,” he commented, rinsing the suds off the box.

Bruce shook his head. “Not really,” he said as he took the now dripping box from Dick’s hands. “Or at least, I wouldn’t change it.”

“Nothing?”

Bruce paused for a moment. “Well, maybe I’d go back and appreciate the early days a little more,” he admitted. “Stop you from growing trying to grow a moustache, stop myself from going by Matches.”

Dick let out the first genuine laugh since this conversation had begun.

The stack of dishes was only half depleted. Bruce wondered just how one person could amass such a pile. The dry dishes and cutlery were now in a messy and rather precarious stack on the benchtop, so Bruce began putting them away.

“Part of me was glad,” he commented. “That I wasn’t the only one blundering around.”

“Blundering around?” Dick repeated. “What, like, when I was a kid?”

Bruce shook his head, and then, realising that he was standing behind Dick, said, “No.” The knives and forks went noisily into the drawer, into their little sections. Bruce frowned at how some of the cutlery had overlapped, moving from their respective spots into a different one. He would have to fix this before he could put anything else in, he knew, and pulled out the entire drawer to set onto a spare part of the benchtop. “When you were a teenager. I thought it was just me who didn’t know what would happen once you hit eighteen.”

Dick let out a humourless laugh. “Yeah, blundering sums that up pretty well,” he said. “That’s probably something I’d change, I gotta say.”

“I should’ve adopted you sooner,” Bruce said, almost absentmindedly. “I just… for the same reasons. Like you said, before.”

Dick let out a long breath, and didn’t say anything. He went to put another box down and realised that the space he’d been stacking the wet dishes was almost full, and glanced over to where Bruce was.

“Aw, Bruce, c’mon,” he said.

“It’ll make your life a lot easier,” Bruce said. “You could barely make out the spoons and the forks.”

“Maybe I wanted them that way,” Dick grumbled. “Maybe this segregated system isn’t good for the cutlery.”

Bruce only responded with a snort, now moving on to the knives. For some reason, there were teaspoons in there as well.

He cleared his throat, and Dick grimaced. “Look,” Dick began. “I get that this is a big thing for you, this whole emotional openness and fixing past mistakes thing, but you kinda dropped a shitload of bombshells on me in,” he glanced at the clock on the microwave door, “the span of like fifteen minutes, so can we take a breather? Approximately forever?”

Bruce frowned a little. “I understand that it must be difficult to hear that I made mistakes—”

“No, what’s _difficult_ is that you realised them _years_ ago, B,” Dick said, whirling around. “You adopted Jason like a month in, so obviously, you got over whatever the hell was stopping you pretty quickly, and just in time for the second kid.”

Bruce didn’t say anything for a moment, not knowing how to respond. He didn’t know how to verbalise all that he’d grasped after Dick had left, and Bruce had come to the realisation that he’d never given Dick a reason to stay. Or at least, he hadn’t been able to get across the fact that Dick _could_ stay, that it was even an option, when their partnership had dissolved.

“I did,” he said uselessly. “I wanted Jason to know that he had a place with—that Robin wasn’t all that made up our relationship.”

Dick nodded, going back to facing the sink. His hands worked furiously at the pan, scrubbing at the crusty food stuck to the sides.

“It goes both ways, too, you know,” Bruce told him. “It’s like the day you turned sixteen, there was nothing I could do right, nothing that satisfied you with just being in Gotham with me. You were with the Titans every week, practically; you were running into every fight like you _wanted_ to hit something. I think I just tried chalking it up to puberty.”

Dick had huffed in disbelief. Now, he said, “ _You’re_ the parent here, and you were the grown-up.” The pan was stuffed roughly beneath the tap, water turned on with a jerk of his wrist and spraying the entire bench.

“You barely gave me any indication that you _wanted_ to stay,” Bruce shot back, as though they were a decade into the past once again.

“I didn’t want to be some pathetic orphan begging for scraps from the billionaire that fostered him,” Dick shouted, waving an arm around and sending droplets of water flying. “Besides, it wasn’t just me. Everyone knew it too.”

Bruce frowned, no longer able to keep up with this sudden change of track. “Knew what?” he asked sharply.

Dick’s brow furrowed even further. “We’ve dug up old, _very_ buried crap already. Do we have to keep going?”

“Dick,” Bruce pressed.

Dick practically shoved the wet pan at him, and Bruce picked up the cloth to dry it.

“Everyone was surprised when I lasted a day, then a week, then a _month_ , and then _six_ months,” Dick recounted, and Bruce nodded along, mouth flat, “and then I think by the time it hit a couple years, they figured, fine, this is a long con. I didn’t really hear any comments about being a charity stunt till I turned like seventeen.”

Bruce’s fingers tightened on the handle. “You never told me,” he said, trying not to sound accusing. Because damn if this didn’t add yet another piece to the puzzle that had been raising a teenager for the first time.

Dick huffed. “Are you really surprised by that?”

Bruce shook his head. And then, almost tentatively, he said, “If it makes you feel better, if you’d brought any of this up to me back then, I would’ve dragged you to my office instantly and gotten you to sign the forms.”

Dick sighed. “I don’t know if it does, really,” he said. He added, “That _is_ a bit dramatic of you, though,” making the tension of the room dissipate in an instant. “I suppose you like to be prepared to snatch up kids, though.”

Bruce wrinkled his nose at Dick’s words, flicking water at him. He was relieved when he received a faceful in return.

* * *

Bruce genuinely considered not having this conversation with Tim today. He felt wrung out, the skin around his eyes tight in a way that suggested the aftermath of tears, but there had been no crying. He sat in the car, having bypassed insane parents who were focused on one goal only: to get a spot in the five-minute parking slash child pick-up zone.

He watched the car in the rearview mirror as it attempted to parallel park behind him, wincing as it came _oh so close_ to bumping him. He was so paranoid in watching the driver – who, at this point, was madly going back and forth in an attempt to get as straight as possible while being a respectful distance from the curb – that he didn’t even notice Tim appearing until the passenger door opened and he slipped inside.

“Hey, Bruce,” Tim said warily. “Everything okay?”

“It will be,” Bruce said grimly, “just as soon as I get out of this hellscape with the paint job intact.”

He started up the engine and peeled out as fast as possible in a school zone, relieved at being able to finally leave. Now he understood why Alfred always had a cup of tea before going to pick up Tim.

Tim laughed. “It’s actually pretty empty here today,” he commented. “You should see the traffic here on the first day of term.”

Bruce shuddered internally.

“So, what’s up?” Tim asked. He rifled through the little compartments in the door, and Bruce watched as he grabbed out various little snacks from here and there.

“Did you not eat at school?” he asked, genuinely confused.

Tim nodded. “I did,” he said, continuing to munch on the packet of – Bruce took his eyes off the road for a moment and squinted – _organic crisps_.

They sounded – and looked – unappetising. Tim appeared to be eating thinly sliced, oven baked vegetables. Bruce stuck his hand out for some anyway.

Tim didn’t place any in it. Bruce frowned and cleared his throat, emphasising his hand once he had Tim’s attention. Tim let out a sigh and gave him a single chip. Bruce immediately placed it into his mouth, and stuck his hand out for another once he realised that these were actually pretty good.

“Y’know,” Tim commented, placing another one in Bruce’s palm. It was like he was intentionally choosing the smallest of chips. “I think I prefer having Alfred take me home. Alfred never asks for my food. And I get to learn all sorts of cool British swear words.”

Bruce snorted. “Alfred doesn’t swear,” he said dismissively, and Tim proceeded to spill a selection of words that had Bruce choking on the chip he was eating.

They drove in silence for a few miles after that, finally getting past the city traffic and onto the exit that would lead to the Manor. Bruce knew that, at the current speed the car was travelling at and excluding the possibility of any unforeseen incidents, they would be arriving in twenty minutes.

He pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “I’ll tell you the exact details afterwards,” he began, possibly a little forebodingly, judging by the way Tim’s head whipped around, “but long, overly complicated story short, this was one of the things that was dropped on my desk this morning.”

Tim unfolded it curiously, and as Bruce watched, he began chewing on his lip as he skimmed through its contents. And then he glanced at Bruce.

“Uh,” he said. “This was a really long time ago? Obviously, by the… y’know.”

Bruce could’ve kicked himself for not realising that it also mentioned the life that Tim used to have, mentions of his father and Dana that were probably excruciating now.

“Tim,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“No, it’s okay,” Tim said, face as perfectly put together as ever.

Bruce hated how easily Tim could mask his emotions, how readily the guise was always there, just waiting to be put on. He’d hoped that Tim knew, by now, that it was okay to be open, but after that conversation with Dick, he’d come to realise that there were probably a lot of assumptions he was making about things that his kids knew that they really, really didn’t.

“I …” This conversation was supposed to be much easier than the first one. There was a lot less to cover, here. Fewer years’ worth of insecurities to build up, though the fact that there were any at all had been a shock. Bruce went about it just as he’d planned to – from the top, in a calm, methodical manner; he knew Tim would appreciate that, at the very least. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any expectations.”

Tim nodded, but his eyes were searching as they looked towards Bruce.

“Do you still feel that way?” Bruce asked finally, shattering the plan he’d so carefully built in an instant.

Tim opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “I… Kinda?” he said, as though he were ashamed of it. “You saying you wanted to adopt me _really_ changed things, fixed a lot.”

Bruce closed his eyes for a moment. He wished he’d known, before he’d gone into any of this, just how much that one slip of paper would mean, to all parties involved. He wished he’d known just how many things it would solve.

“But I mean, you’re _Batman_ ,” Tim continued. “That’s like… getting into MIT at fourteen and getting your doctorate a couple years later and then making a suit of armour.”

Bruce frowned. “What?” he said blankly.

Tim waved a hand. “Not important,” he said, and Bruce sighed, knowing he was going to be looking this vague reference to something up when they got home. “I mean like… you’re the best detective, y’know? You have _standards_ of the people you work with—”

“Tim,” Bruce said in a hoarse voice. He wanted to shake his shoulders, but they were currently driving. Bruce glanced around for someplace to pull over, but he knew it wouldn’t be until they got farther out of the city. “You make it sound so analytical.”

Tim gave him a confused look. “It is, though,” he said, as though Bruce was the idiot here. “We each have a set of skills, and we try to fix Gotham using them. And for that, you gotta have the best minds, best fighters.”

Bruce let out a measured breath through his nose. “Yes,” he said, “but that’s not all there is to it. You think Dick was the best at anything when he first became Robin?”

Tim gave him that same look again. “Yeah?” he said, in that way that teenagers had. “He was the only one who could do a quadruple somersault? On his way to becoming one of the best acrobats?”

Bruce immediately leapt onto that phrase. “Yes, exactly,” he said, relieved. “’On his way’. He was honing his skills, had never done any sort of detective work or crime fighting before. For obvious reasons. He didn’t become Robin because he was the _best_.”

“Neither did I,” Tim readily agreed. “But I was only able to _stay_ Robin because I was good at being a detective, and pretty good at fighting bad guys.”

“Yes, you were,” Bruce said. “But that’s not all there was to it.”

Tim nodded again, as though he’d finally understood where Bruce was going with this. “Right,” he said. “Batman needs a Robin.”

Bruce didn’t know how to get it across to Tim that he valued his presence in his life, that there was _much_ more to Bruce wanting Tim around than just Robin, and had always been.

“Why do you think I adopted you?” he asked finally.

“Because my dad died and Dana couldn’t take care of me?” Tim asked, voice going back to that same blankness as before.

“Hundreds of kids go into the system every day,” Bruce pressed on. “Don’t you think they all have neighbours who could take care of them?”

Tim shrugged. “Not everyone has the means, or cares enough,” he said. “Also, it’d be kinda hard to be Robin if I had to go into foster care for a couple years.”

Every parenting book Bruce had skimmed through while preparing for this conversation was now knocking at the door, filling his brain with unhelpful little suggestions like _praise him for being partially right!_

“Partly, yes,” Bruce said. “There’s also the part where I started seeing you as my son for a long time, and—” he mentally edited out things like _selfishly, I wanted to adopt you as soon as I could_ because this wasn’t about him and how he’d viewed Jack as more of a nuisance than a real authoritative figure in Tim’s life, “I wanted you to have a place here, in the family, something that was legally binding.”

Dick had taken to calling Tim his younger brother almost as soon as he’d become Robin. Alfred had set up a room for Tim just as quickly. Hell, even Selina had taken a liking to him. Really, it’d only been Bruce who had been slow on the uptake, stubborn and grieving.

“Even if you wanted to quit and become a civilian,” Bruce said carefully, “I wouldn’t stop you.”

Tim was quiet. “So then when you made Steph Robin,” he said in a low voice, “that _wasn’t_ about me?” and Bruce suddenly couldn’t breathe.

“I…”

Tim looked at him. “It’s shitty of me bringing her up, but you _never_ talk about her. Always brushed it off whenever I brought up how I felt about her dying – well, fake dying, I guess – or anything to do with memories I had of her.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said uselessly. “I just couldn’t.”

Because how could he explain to Tim all the things that Stephanie had reminded him of, with her stubbornness and her upbringing and the way she had never taken constant refusals from Bruce as a final answer. And then, just like Jason, she had died at the hands of an enemy, all because he’d been too late at getting there once again.

And even now, when he knew that she was alive, that she’d _survived_ , it didn’t change things.

“And I get that that’s just how you cope,” Tim was saying, “but it was still… really shitty.”

Bruce _had_ to pull over now, because this conversation couldn’t go on with the two of them facing forward like this, neither looking at each other or being able to make eye contact without risking a car crash.

It was lucky that they were finally off the highway and onto one of the side roads. It was a longer route than Bruce knew Alfred took to get home, but he’d wanted the extra time. And besides, this way was a lot more scenic.

“I know,” he said. “I know it wasn’t fair on you. I just… I couldn’t deal with reminders of her.”

“She was in my life more than she was ever in yours,” Tim said quietly.

And then he unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the car. Bruce gave him a minute before he followed, turning off the ignition. There was a faint breeze in the air, and the long grass swayed.

“I’m sorry,” Tim said when Bruce drew up next to him. He was leaning against the side of the car, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “You had something you wanted to say and I keep derailing this conversation.”

Bruce shook his head. It didn’t escape him how, even now once they were out of the car, neither faced the other. “This conversation is about you,” he said. “And, quite frankly, I’m fine with going off script if it means you get things off your chest.”

Tim glanced at him now, at those words. “You’re being kinda weird today, you know?” he said.

Bruce huffed a breath. “I’ve had a similar conversation with Dick before I picked you up,” he told him. “There was something similar – of his – that accompanied your email.”

“You’ve gotta fill me in on this once we get back,” Tim said with a shake of his head. “I have no idea who could’ve accessed this email. I deleted it to hell and back.”

“But you intended to send it,” Bruce said. He’d been relieved at that – it had felt less like invading Tim’s privacy, which had been how he’d felt once he’d reached the end of Dick’s letter and realised it was never meant for him to see.

Tim nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Can’t really remember what it was that made me delete it, but I didn’t really feel the same way after, if that makes this… any better.”

“Tim, you know that I wouldn’t replace you,” Bruce said, eyes narrowing at the boy beside him.

Tim hesitated. “I mean, you kinda _did_ replace me, with Steph,” he said awkwardly.

Bruce grimaced. “I… will never do it again,” he amended. “But you were the one who quit.”

Tim raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, and your first instinct was to replace me with my _girlfriend,_ ” he countered. “Excuse me for taking that a little personally.”

“I honestly can’t say if it was,” Bruce said. “I don’t know whether it was some subconscious desire to get you back into the fold. She was there, eager to be Robin, reckless about how she went about being a vigilante, and with a father like that… she reminded—”

“You of Jason, I know,” Tim said tiredly. “I guess we’ll never really know, huh. And besides, I’m back now, she’s… back to being Spoiler. It doesn’t really matter anymore.”

Bruce sighed. “Of course it matters. But I don’t think either of us will be particularly satisfied with the conversation.”

Tim snorted. “Yeah, because you’re emotionally repressed enough to not even realise exactly why you do certain things,” he said, but it was punctuated with a shove against Bruce’s side and a small smile, so the words didn’t sting in the slightest.

Bruce wrapped an arm around Tim’s thin shoulders and held him there, mentally letting out a sigh of relief when Tim didn’t freeze up like he had the first few times Bruce had attempted to show any overly large signs of affection.

“So, uh,” Tim said after a moment. “Are we done? Is this conversation finally over?”

Bruce released him, but not before ruffling his gelled hair. He grimaced when his hand came away greasy. “Yes, fine,” he said with a grumble he’d perfected watching how other fathers in the schoolyard behaved. “Just… any you is enough,” he said.

Tim squinted at him as he got into the passenger seat. “What?” he said blankly. “Is that a quote or something? Have you been watching _Hannah Montana_?”

Bruce sighed, muttering _kids these days_ to show Tim that he’d gotten the message to let the conversation die loud and clear, and turned the key.

**Author's Note:**

> Any questions you have about the villain, etc. is answered by [Aurora's wonderful fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120071) =D (pls do yourself a favour and go read that)
> 
> Thank you for reading!!! (I'll eventually cross-post this to tumblr)


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